Random stories

This place smells of stale coffee and eggs. One of those places with an 'All Day Breakfast' sign in the window, underneath a piece of paper with six or seven different crossed out prices. You can see through the sharpie and it's a shame that the grand slam used to cost a five and now it's fifteen.

You'd think they could change the paper out but it's not that kind of place.

It's the kind of place with scuffed steel plate on the counter, an array of stools with varying degrees of damaged black seat covers. You have a choice of 'a little fluff' or 'a lot of fluff' sticking out from the upholstery of any one of the dozen booths. I sit with my hands wrapped around a ceramic mug that I think used to be white, stained brown with two decades of coffee.

Might be the same coffee that's being poured into my mug right now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I don't come here for the atmosphere, I come here for the bacon and egg sandwiches and the peach pie that I would literally murder for.

And that brings us full circle.

See, this run down diner off the beaten path but close to six different freeway ramps and main thoroughfares, well it's here for a reason. It's two in the AM and I'm the only patron right now, sucking down shitty coffee and nursing a bruised ego. I thought I was better than this. I really did. Turns out maybe I'm not cut out for the murder-for-hire business.

There's twenty five grand in my bank account that wasn't there yesterday, there's another twenty five grand coming my way when the job is done. I was so sure it'd be done today. I really was.

The target is a mousy guy with glasses, wears a rumpled suit to his accounting job with some forgettable money firm that handles bankruptcies and investments and a billion other things that involve dollar signs. He should have been easy to kill. But no.

I went with a long range shot first. It's not my specialty but I can handle a long gun. Guy never opened his fucking shades. I waited until lunch and then I packed it in on that. Call me impatient, I guess, but I'm not going to sit there waiting.

Went for the close and personal, now we're getting into my zone. No dice. Of all the things that could go wrong, not being able to find a security badge to get to his floor was the thing that did me in there.

I could have survived all of that. It was stupid but it wasn't a game ender, you know?

But the subway.

Fuck.

How do you explain to your employer that you took a job for fifty grand and you had the target in your sights and he got away because you got your fucking arm stuck in the doors? There's a city wide alert for some nutjob pumping three rounds into a subway car window. Not a person, no, I didn't hit a single person. Not even a bystander. No I hit a pane of glass three times and then had to wrench my arm free of the subway doors before the train dragged me down the track.

Lost my gun.

I drop my head and sigh at my coffee.

"At least you won't judge me." I whisper at the mug.

The stool next to me creaks as someone settles their weight into it and I sigh again.

"Look, the whole place is free, I'm sitting here out of the way and I really don't feel like-"

I stop. I raised my head as I was trying my best to politely tell some other contract killer to fuck off and then I made eye contact and it's a problem.

Cause it's him.

The mousy guy. Rumpled suit. Accountant. He stares at me and all I get off him is *bemused*.

He has that half smile plastered on his face, the one that we've all seen. It's like if "bless your heart" was a person. He raises a finger and the waitress nods and I let out another deflated sigh. He's a regular.

That's really bad.

"So." He says, resting both his hands on the counter. That's a good sign. At least he's not going to sneaky kill me. "First day on the job, huh?"

I nod.

He shrugs.

"I don't hold it against you. I really don't. That would be bad manners." He removes his glasses and folds them, setting them on the counter beside my mug. The waitress brings him a coffee in a mug that looks suspiciously clean.

He takes a sip and I smell...hazelnut. He lets out a content breath and sets the mug down, spinning his stool to face me and leaning on the counter with his elbow.

"Now what?" I say.

I don't even have a gun. I don't even have cutlery yet. I'm getting the sense that maybe a butter knife would go worse for me than for him though. I have a mug of coffee. It's still sort of hot.

"Relax." He says. I see something hard in his eyes and I decide that the coffee idea is a bad one too. "I'm not here for that. As a token."

He places my gun on the counter and nods toward it.

"It is unloaded." He says. "Olive branches only extend so far before you're asking for it."

"Fair enough." I say. "Thank you."

We sit in the quiet for a minute and he purses his lips.

"Want some advice?" He asks. I shrug. I'm waiting for the axe to fall, any second now.

"Sure." I say.

"Don't use things with meaning. It makes it worse when you lose them. And you're going to have to get better at being invisible. Blend in, plain sight, sometimes that's all it takes."

"Thanks?" I say. He nods and places a twenty dollar bill on the counter. Then he stands and looks at me, head tilted.

"You remind me of someone. You've got promise, kid. But you need some polishing, that's for sure. Call this number. She'll help you." He hands me a business card and I take it. There's nothing on it but a phone number.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"Just someone that's very interested in the person who paid you to kill me." He says. He turns and takes a few steps before he pauses. I look at him.

"I hope I don't have to say it, but just in case." He says. Gone is the bemused look, replaced by something much more sinister. "If you try it again, it will be the last thing you do. I think you have something, kid, but that only goes so far. Clear?"

I nod.

He smiles again and the sinister is gone. He looks different without his glasses. His posture has changed too. And with a hand sweep through his hair, he hardly looks the same. He winks and then he disappears through the door, into the darkness.

I look at the number on the card and turn it over.

There are two words there.

"You're a lucky guy." The waitress says, gathering up my mug and replacing it with a clean one. "Daniel Burnwood doesn't take to people easily. And that bodyguard of his..."

She shudders. She pulls a bottle of whiskey from under the counter and I realize that my hands are shaking. She smiles at me softly and pours some of the whiskey into my coffee. It smells of hazelnuts.

"And who has a barcode tattoo, anyway? Creeps me out."

She leaves the bottle and walks away. I swallow the lump in my throat, looking at the words on the card.

The Agency.

---

Submitted by jacktherambler on Sat, Dec 24, 2022 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

You're a hitman who has just taken his first contract. After a long day of trying and failing to kill your target, you eventually come face to face with him. You both just look at each other, and he shrugs before asking "First day on the job, huh?"